State Rep. Explains Aversion Towards Female Interns

After being captured on audio last month making what many considered to be a rather lewd remark to a high schooler during a committee hearing, Connecticut State Representative Ernest Hewett (pictured) now says he has no use for female interns, reports the Huffington Post.

On Feb. 20 at an appropriations committee hearing at the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, a 17-year-old female high school senior took the floor to reveal how the center had helped her overcome a snake phobia. After listening to the youth recount how she would also like to see other people overcome their fear of snakes, Hewett responded with, “If you’re bashful, I got a snake sitting under my desk here,” Hewett laughingly commented. Not only did the politico get a chuckle out of his comment but so did committee members.

Hewett, who emphatically apologized to the female high school student he made the remark to, was later crucified in the media for his comment which many considered to be suggestive. As a result of the firestorm that grew after he made the off-color comment, Hewett was stripped last Friday of his eight-year leadership position as deputy speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Hewett told the Hartford Courant not only did he not plan to step down from his House seat but he would not hire another female intern again, either.Hewett, who said he has nothing against women in general, told the Hartford newspaper, “I purposely will not have female interns. My intern now is a male. I want to keep it like that. I’ve had female interns in the past that sit in my office all day. I thought it was totally weird and I didn’t want another.”

The state representative, who is married with two daughters and a son, also told the paper that he went years sans an intern period because he could not control what gender would be assigned to him.

“They may give me a female, but I don’t want a female intern,” he told the Courant staff. “That may sound sexist, but I really don’t. That way, that keeps me good, and that keeps everybody else good.”

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